Hardly any talented European comes to our university and we struggled for more than a year to bring back damn good VC Albert Shram. Today Unitech is a dark room with no air movement only Shram can unlock this place and make it move again.

1. Government made a mediation report in 2012 and Sevua report in 2013 and nothing was found wrong with Shram.

PNG cabinet has sacked minister for Petroleum and Energy William Duma in a mini ministerial reshuffle today. Minister Duma is the Party leader of the United Resources Party. Madang MP Nixon Duban has been appointed as the Minister of Petroleum and Energy.

The cabinet has also replaced Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology David Arore. Sohe MP Delilah Gore is the new minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology.

Three weeks into the first term of the school year, and fresh calls are being made for the return of Dr. Albert Schram, as Vice Chancellor of the University of Technology.

But a staff member, who held a public forum on Monday, has been asked to resign, despite echoing public views shared by the Universities administration and Student Representative Council.
Ken Polun, who heads the university’s maintenance division, held the public forum citing newspaper reports that stated Schram had been cleared in the investigation led by former judge, Mark Sevua.

He was later stopped by security and asked to resign by the university administration.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

(This was published Tuesday 4 February. Thank you Chancellor, it is quite unequivocal. I have never had a conflict with Council, and I have never been legally dismissed by the now dissolved, former Council.

The conflict is now between Council on the one hand, and the Minister of Higher Education and the Migration authorities on the other hand. Who has been holding this up since June? AS)

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

This press statement was released on 12 November 2012, over 1 year ago, before Minister Arore turned against the Council he himself had appointed, thus prolonging the conflict and promoting instability on campus.

The whole saga could have stopped there and then. The agenda proposed in this press statement indicates what needed to be done at UNITECH:

Rehabilitate the internal bookkeeping system

Drastically improve ICT and IT networks for staff members and students

Undertake Institutional and Program audit (particularly in the engineering disciplines)

Commence the process of ensuring academic programs such as engineering are accredited to the Washington Accord

Undertake with OHE a salary review for staff

Adopt immediate strategies to reduce the current accumulative debt of K36 Million, and

Investigate claims of fraudulent and criminal practices that may or may not have occurred over the years.

The Papua New Guinea government is pouring K500 million (US$222 million) into universities to roll out and upgrade programmes, in order to increase the intake of students coming out of secondary schools, Higher Education, Science and Research Technology Minister David Arore said last week, reports The National.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

(The general public may believe I have been sacked, but I have in fact never been legally dismissed. My position was endorsed by Council meeting in August and again in December. It is up to the government now to give me my employment visa. They could have done that since June, when the Sevua Investigation cleared my of all silly and baseless allegations. AS)

About Me

Committed to making a real difference by leading positive change in higher education.

For over 10 years
from 1993-2004, I worked in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean
in the field of environmental and sustainable development policy, and
environmental economics. My research interest is the role of technology and private business in the development of countries.

As an academic I have 17 peer review publications in various humanities and social sciences disciplines, supervised 5 PhD students and 18 Masters thesis.

As a consultant I worked as head of the environmental
studies department of SIDE, S.A. a consultancy company with
office in Mexico City, San José, and Lima I worked closely together
with many government organizations and private companies. For the World Bank’s Economic Development Institute I carried out two regional studies on sustainable development policies. For the European Commission I wrote one report on corporate social responsiblity, and one on the green economy for the European External Action Service.

Currently, I am Vice-Chancellor or Chief Executive Officer of the Papua New Guinea University of Papua New Guinea, in Lae.